Briefs | Kinetics is this weekend

The 31st annual Kinetic Sculpture Race — the first one at Union Reservoir in Longmont — will be held Aug. 27–28.

The Kinetic Sculpture Pageantry & Judging will be held on Main Street in downtown Longmont from 6 to 9 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 27, as part of the Festival on Main.

Advance tickets for Saturday’s race will be sold at the festival and at Longmont recreational facilities for $2 each, not including parking. Advance tickets with outlying parking at Longmont recreational facilities are $8 (tickets with parking the day of the event are $10), and $20 for VIP, close-in parking. Call 720- 837-1577 for more information on the outlying parking.

The race, which will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the reservoir, will feature food, non-alcoholic drinks, vendors, live music and more.

Dog days at Lamont Does

The “dog days of summer” are still alive and well in Lafayette.

Four-legged friends are invited to the LaMont Does Outdoor Pool for a doggie dip from 4 to 6 p.m. on Labor Day, the last day of the season for the pool.

The cost is $5, and all dogs must have a current rabies tag. Only dogs will be allowed in the pool.

The pool is at 500 S. Boulder Road.

More road work

Just as the Broadway reconstruction project between Pine and Iris wraps up, the city of Boulder has begun its annual street resurfacing project.

This week, work is scheduled in outlying areas with intermittent, daytime lane closures in an effort to minimize traffic impacts around the city at the beginning of the school year.

The streets that will be resurfaced in the coming months include Mapleton Avenue between 13th and 15th streets; Alpine Avenue between 9th and 13th streets; Baseline Road from 37th Street to the eastern city limit; 30th Street between Arapahoe and Bixby avenues; Colorado Avenue from Folsom to 30th Street; 28th Street Frontage Road from Colorado Avenue to Culver Court; and Apache Road from Ottawa Place to the northwest end of Ottawa Place.

A new program has been launched to reduce traffic congestion at local schools by encouraging middle schoolers to carpool or ride an RTD bus instead of being driven to school by a parent.

GObyBus/School Pool organizers hope their project, which began Aug. 9, will reduce the number of middle schoolers who arrive at school in a single-occupant vehicle by 30 percent.

Morning congestion at Boulder middle schools causes traffic jams, localized air pollution and occasional aggressive driving as parents compete for parking spots. During the colder months of 2009–10, an estimated 45 percent of students at the seven middle schools in Boulder were dropped off daily by a parent, adding an estimated 1,350 additional cars to the streets approaching the schools between 8 and 8:30 each morning (based on data from GObyBus/SchoolPool transportation surveys).

Contributing factors include the large number of open-enrolled students (37 percent) not served by school buses.

GObyBus/School Pool, along with Boulder Valley School District’s existing Safe Routes to School program, encourages parents and students to organize carpools, use public transportation, ride a bike or walk to school through the following tools:

• A school transportation website to help parents and students plan their trips without using singleoccupant vehicles

• New carpooling software from Ride Arrangers, a Denver Regional Council of Governments program that matches parents with others in their neighborhood.

• Transportation information centers placed in the seven BVSD middle schools in the city of Boulder

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first airplane flight in Colorado, the Boulder History Museum is launching a new exhibit on Aug. 27.

Colorado Takes Off! gives visitors a sampling of Colorado’s rich aerospace history, with stories of many of Colorado’s aviation pioneers. A public “Sneak Peek Reception” for the exhibit will be held from 5:30 to 7 p.m. today for a $10 fee, which includes exhibit admission, appetizers, drinks and live music by David Wood.

The multimedia exhibit features artifacts, scale models (many in dioramas), vintage photographs and sound clips. Many of the photographs have never been on display before.

The exhibit’s sponsors are Jeppesen, Lockheed Martin and Redstone College.

The exhibit runs through Feb. 6, and museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. on weekends.